The Keys of Marinus
”Key of E?”
“Is there any other?”
The original edition of board game Trivial Pursuit (1981) asked the question “Who created Doctor Who?” and gave the answer “Terry Nation”. This was a result, perhaps, of his prominence as a television science fiction writer in the decade immediately prior. Or maybe because of the credit “Based on the BBC TV Serial by Terry Nation” on the first Dalek film. Of course, Nation didn’t create Doctor Who. Not in the senses of having come up with the idea, named the programme or even being credited as doing so.1
Nation is one of those people for whom ubiquity has, in fandom at least, bred if not contempt then a certain reluctance to engage beyond the obvious. It’s inarguable that Doctor Who owes much of its early success to the Daleks, so that’s something we accept and move on from without thinking about what it means. That Nation became a rich man as a result of canny merchandising deals arranged by his agent Beryl Vertue, and his self-deprecating way of talking about himself and his motives also don’t help. (He often described The Daleks as a “take the money and fly like a thief!” job that he only took after being sacked by Tony Hancock.)
